![Essence of Anime: Perfect Blue [DVD]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51mSoPs6ebL._SX300_SY300_QL70_ML2_.jpg)
Anime director Satoshi Kon has proven himself over and over again to be the master of bizarre psychological thrills and social commentary. He has most recently earned acclaim in the West for his dazzling exploration of the world in which humans spend their dreams in
Paprika
and took on the media machine along with the unique delusional psychoses we all suffer from in some form or another in his masterpiece, the television series
Paranoia Agent
.
Millennium Actress
was a beautiful look back at the history of Japanese cinema, while
Tokyo Godfathers
taught us that even the lowliest among us are worthy of basic human dignity and more. Most of his stories are told in an extremely unorthodox fashion that mixes fantasy, delusion, reality, and perception together and dares you to tell them apart. This movie is where it all started.
1997's "Perfect Blue" was Kon's first film and it set the standard not only for his career, but for any film -animated or otherwise- that should dare to enter this genre that has been dominated by the talents of luminaries such as Hitchcock and Argento throughout modern cinematic history. While the comparison's there are obvious, I believe it is fans of David Lynch who may well get the most out of this one due to the jarring and unheralded switching between alternate realities of different characters without exposition or mercy. It begins as a standard murder-mystery about a pop-singer attempting to make that unsteady leap to serious actress with a stalker on her tail. While the storytelling is quite standard for the film's first half, the second half will throw you for a loop. And another. And another. Expect confusion, more confusion, and finally exasperation before you settle down and just enjoy the show. It's a hell of a ride. The second half of the story is told out of sequence, out of time, occasionally apart from reality, and seen from multiple perspectives. I would go so far as to say that each viewer may well have a different idea of just what the actual events are and which were imagined. Just know that in a Satoshi Kon work it's always a good idea to assume every character is a delusional psychotic of some sort and what you're seeing is often no more than what they BELIEVE they're seeing.
While I find the irritation of the large section of the film where you don't know what is going on to be a major downer, this is still a film I would recommend to anybody who loves a good mystery or doubts the power of the animated medium to intrigue and entertain adult film fans who have seen it all. Perfect Blue" is as powerful a piece of cinema in it's own right as the works of the masters I mentioned before. It's a nightmare within a delusion where the entertainment industry eats itself from within and drives it's occupants to insanity both inside and outside the very same fantasy worlds it creates. How much of the perpetual illusions cast by the glitz, the glamor, and the obsessed fans can one person stand? How much pressure to make them snap? When vicarious career obsession and regret melds with a pre-existing personality disorder, the conclusion is something only Satoshi Kon could bring to life and it is brutal. "Perfect Blue" pulls no punches. Full nudity, grotesque violence and rape are all present and accounted for. A far cry from the film's light-hearted pop-idol beginnings. It's amazing how much ground is covered in well under 90 minutes here.
In this DVD edition the film is is remastered, extended, and we are treated to some special features including interviews of varying quality from both English and Japanese language actors as well as the director himself. watching Kon try to play off the film's storytelling as very standard is annoying, but makes it more amusing when he is pressed to explain the film's message and he practically falls to pieces trying to come up with a answer, though he does drop some sagely nuggets for us before repeatedly stammering that it's "hard to explain". No Sh!+.
4 1/2 stars, rounded up for blowing my mind even upon repeated viewings.
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